Chapter 16

The moment I released him, he reached for the gun. I let him grab it, point it at me, and pull the trigger. It went click.

He pulled the magazine, slid it back in, and cleared the chamber. A solid gold bullet popped out of the gun, and hit the table. He pointed the gun at me, and pulled the trigger. It went click again.

He cleared it, releasing another solid gold bullet. He stared at it, then picked it up and bit it.

“What is this?” he asked.

“24 karat gold.”

“Why are my bullets gold?”

“Because Poseidon doesn’t want to get shot in the face by Tammuz.”

He pointed the gun at my chest, and pulled the trigger, it went click.

“Or anywhere else!” I said with exasperation.

“Do you need gold? I can give you gold without having to ruin perfectly good bullets. Bullets I’m paying you to use to protect me, by the way.”

He put the gun away, and stood up. “Prove it,” he demanded.

I began to conjure gold coins just above his head. He looked up as they kept falling on him. “Ok enough,” he said.

There had been three hundred twenty before he said stop. At almost 1500 a piece that was nearly half a million dollars in gold, plus the gold bullets.

“How are you doing this?”

I held up the ring, “When my father wore it, there were five stones, I inherited it, so it now has six.” I pointed at the black stone, “This guy lived before the invention of writing. I pointed at the green stone, this was Merlin. I pointed at the red stone, this is my father. The clear diamond will turn to a color when I die, and whoever inherits will get their own clear diamond.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“But do you trust me?” I said angrily as the temperature dropped to to below freezing in an instant. His coffee cup shattered as the coffee in the bottom expanded, breaking the cup.

“I trust you, Poseidon. Can I ask for that emergency favor between brothers now?”

“Whatever you need brother,” I told him.

“My wife has cancer, there’s an experimental but very expensive treatment available in Sweden. Can I have this gold to use for her treatment?”

“The gold is yours. But I’ll cure your wife myself,” I told him.

“How do I believe you?”

“How did you lose the toe on your left foot?” I asked.

“Frostbite, broke my leg on a closed ski trail I was sure I could conquer. It took them a while to find me.”

“Pull your shoe off,” I told him.

He did so, and I made his toe regrow. He quickly pulled his sock off, unable to believe his eyes. He grabbed his keys from a pocket. “Let’s go!”

He led the way out the door, went to the elevator, and hit the down button repeatedly. When the doors opened, he stepped in and jabbed the basement button. I followed as his gaze reproached me for being slow.

He practically ran to the vehicle. “Hey boss, where you going?” Guido asked.

“Need to make a trip with Adam, be back soon, hold the fort.”

I got in the car, and before I had my seatbelt on, he had it reversed, and was charging up the ramp to street level.

“Christian slow down,” I said.

I grabbed the car with my power, lifting it so the wheels stopped touching the ground, I brought it to a stop just short of the exit.

“Christian, is it really an emergency? Is it worth risking our lives to save a few minutes to get to your wife?”

He looked sheepish, but defiant. “I’ll go slower.”

“No, you will go safely,” I said, “Now stop accelerating so I can put the car down.”

He pressed on the brake, and I slowly set the car down.

“Much better, now tell me about your wife as you drive, nice and safely to wherever she is,” I instructed.

“Doris has been my wife for twenty three years, she’s been battling cancer for the last four. Sweden was just a pipe dream, but the only one I had left. We have two kids, twin boys, in college now. I’ve been working for your dad, and anyone else as much as I can, just to pay medical bills.”

“That gold is yours, it’s somewhere between 420 and 480 thousand.”

“Thank you, Adam. If this cure works then I’m yours for life.”

“Careful what you promise, my dad was actually over 800 not 86. I can pretty much keep you alive as long as I live. I’m going to need people, as most of dad’s inductees have died, or are old. Thing is, if I heal you or your wife, my successor can’t. That also means that most of the organization is going to be all new people, and I need help finding people I can ask to trust me.”

“Yeah that really was crazy,” he said.

“Not my ritual. That was my first time performing it, any suggestions or points that needed clarification?”

“I am curious who your friends are that protected your dad.”

“Oh that was just him, using his own power to make bullets and shoot them,” I said.

“He could do that before the ring, me too for that matter. The difference is that it gives me direct access to his memories, and to a lesser extent the previous ring holders. There is a reason that a memory transfer device was developed prior to the advent of writing.”

“You just keep blowing my mind, but I get the warning, I live a long life with my wife by keeping you alive.”

“You are a very smart man, Christian Christoph Hans.”

“So why did your dad die if he had all these powers?”

“Who said he did?”

“What!”

“I’m kidding, watch the road. We get old, it happens, reflexes slow down, etcetera. He’d had a premonition that it was going to happen soon. There is a Bible verse, I don’t remember where, ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’ We are a long way from getting to that last enemy.”

“So, what are the groups goals? World domination? Global democracy? Making Steve Gutenberg a star?” he asked jokingly.

“Protecting humanity. Right now that’s working on solving global warming. Reversing carbon emissions, mitigating the inevitable mass migrations, finding carbon free power, making sure that if it gets really bad that a small group of humans and a chunk of the biosphere survives.” I answered deadly seriously.

“Is that really such a problem?” he asked.

“If you are going to live six hundred years, and the earths biosphere will collapse in two hundred, how big of a problem is it?”

“A pretty big problem.”

“Now, imagine you have to get help from people who only think five years ahead at the most, and don’t live longer than 80. Additionally, if you don’t make drastic changes in the first hundred years, no matter what, you are screwed.”

“Are those numbers accurate? We really are screwed, aren’t we?” he asked.

“There are emergency plans. A lot of people die, but the earth itself would survive. It’s a problem that transcends borders, which requires the solution to transcend borders also.”